Fathers still not sharing load, says study

The biggest obstacle to fathers' involvement with their children after divorce is their lack of involvement before divorce, a report says.

The discussion paper, Fatherhood and Fatherlessness, to be released today by the social policy think tank the Australia Institute, said a current proposal to amend family law to ensure children split living between their mother's and father's residences "would not enhance shared parenting".

The author, Michael Flood, an institute research fellow, said fathers needed policies that "help them connect with their children at all stages of life, not simplistic laws that fail to address the real obstacles to involved fathering".

The report says fathers are highly involved in the day-to-day care of their children in only 5 to 10 per cent of Australian families, and share the physical care of their children in only 1 or 2 per cent of families.

Government policies that encourage fathers to be breadwinners and mothers to be homemakers have limited the role all fathers play in their children's lives, the report says.

Such policies, as well as a work culture that encourages the same split of men's and women's roles, long hours and inflexibility, also limit fathers' involvement with their children, it says.

These government and work policies have made fathers ill-equipped to share the care of children after separation, the paper says. It calls for a comprehensive strategy to promote fathers' positive participation in their children's lives. It says that while the the culture of fatherhood has "changed radically, the conduct has not".

Mr Flood said: "Sharing care of children in couple families is desirable in itself, and will also lead to greater sharing of the care of children of separated parents."

If more flexible employment practices were allowed, this would lead to more "involved" fathering. Workplaces should offer control over start and finish times, regular part-time work, and creative solutions to family needs, the report says.

As well, equal economic opportunities for women would boost men's involvement in parenting. The paper points to broader obstacles that limit men's involvement, such as "father-unfriendly" ante-natal and post-natal services, society's culture of materialism, and men and women failing to co-operate.

Mr Flood said the proposal being examined by a federal parliamentary inquiry to change family law to ensure children were shared in divorce cases - technically known as the "rebuttable presumption of joint custody" - was not an "appropriate or effective means to enhance fathers' positive involvement in families".

A one-size-fits-all model that required children to live alternate weeks with each parent, for example, could diminish children's wellbeing.

Mr Flood criticised fathers' rights groups in Australia for focusing on men as victims of injustice in family law, thus wanting to turn the clock back on feminism and to reassert male dominance.

A claim in the 12-point plan released by the National Fatherhood Forum in June that boys from a fatherless home were 14 times more likely to commit rape was an "invention", he said.

The research literature did not substantiate the assertion that fathers' absence from families, of itself, caused serious problems for children.

In separated families, paternal contact was a poor predictor of how children turned out. A positive fathering styleof encouragement, support, monitoring and "non-coercive rule-setting" that assisted children's development was more important.